Chapter Text
The next day, Lan Wangji trained with Bichen in the courtyard. He slept like the dead, too tired to even think.
The day after, he trained with Bichen in the courtyard once more. He struck at empty air until his lungs ached, until he couldn’t think. Some part of him understood that this was melodramatic of him. Wei Wuxian would be back. Wasn’t he just proving his own point, that he only kept him here out of some selfish desire? That Wei Wuxian was his caged bird, trapped for Lan Wangji’s own happiness?
Sweat lined his brow and soaked through his headband. He groaned. He could still think. That wouldn’t do. He put himself through another set of drills, then another, until his chest heaved.
“Nephew,” Lan Qiren called, behind Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji turned to face his uncle and bowed, his breath bursting from his lips like a bellows. “Uncle,” he greeted, between breaths.
Lan Qiren watched him cool down as he bowed back. “You’ve been training hard today, I see,” he said. His voice had softened in the last few years, especially when he wasn’t in the classroom. “See to it that you don’t fall over before lunch. It would be unbecoming of a Chief Cultivator.”
“Yes, Uncle,” Lan Wangji answered.
His stare was piercing, but not unkind. “The grounds have been quiet these last few days. I wonder why you entrusted your students to your husband alone,” he mused. I wonder why the illustrious Hanguang-Jun didn’t go with them , Lan Qiren’s words seemed to imply. The last year had made Wei Wuxian at least tolerable to his uncle, even though he didn’t show it.
“A Chief Cultivator has many duties. A night hunt of this length would keep me from them,” Lan Wangji replied, as breezily as he could manage. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t quite the truth.
“Ah. So devoted to your work. You make your uncle proud.” If Lan Qiren took notice of the way Lan Wangji skirted one of the Clan’s rules, he said nothing of it. Instead, he eyed Lan Wangji’s sweaty robes. “I’d like to have tea with my nephew this evening. Be sure that you change before then.” If one knew Lan Qiren very well, they’d be able to note the teasing tone to his voice, and the minute, miniscule lift at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, Uncle,” Lan Wangji responded, bowing to hide a small smile of his own.
With that, Lan Qiren bowed and left Lan Wangji standing in the courtyard, suddenly aware of how damp and uncomfortable his robes were.
Evening couldn’t come quickly enough. Lan Wangji answered more letters, more petitions, more tedious proclamations. He cleaned his rooms, although with Wei Wuxian being gone the last two days there wasn’t much to pick up after—he wasn’t particularly messy as compared to other people, but he certainly was mess ier than most Lans. He played the guqin. When Lan Wangji decided it was late enough, he made his way to his uncle’s rooms.
Lan Qiren scarcely looked up when Lan Wangji entered the room. He was finishing up some sort of notation, perhaps a lecture of his, in his study. “Wait for me in the tea room, Nephew,” he said, as he held his sleeve and wrote. Lan Wangji did as he was told.
He didn’t have to wait long for Lan Qiren to follow him in, and they exchanged bows. Lan Wangji prepared the tea. Lan Qiren commended him. They drank in silence. Lan Wangji eased himself into the comfort of this ritual between family.
“These past decades have not been kind to you,” Lan Qiren said, after he had set his cup down, “But I have never seen you as happy as you have been these past two years.”
Lan Wangji poured himself another cup of tea.
“Why did you send your husband away?”
Lan Wangji drank his tea. Because a gnat of a sect leader made him self conscious and angry? Because guilt ate at him so much that morning, he felt like there was nothing of himself left? Because his Wei Ying goaded him into it? Because it was perpetually in his self-interest to keep the ones he loved at a distance? He looked at Lan Qiren. Those were all, he supposed, honest enough answers. Instead, Lan Wangji said, “I did not want to become my father.”
Lan Qiren’s composure did not crumple so much as it wavered, like a ribbon in wind. He allowed Lan Wangji to fill his cup. He drank from it, brows drawn tight. He set it down and sighed. “I raised,” he said, picking his words carefully, “the most stubborn child.”
Lan Wangji thumbed at the edge of the table and felt nine years old again. He wasn’t being scolded. His uncle sounded more exasperated than angry.
“You are like your father,” Lan Qiren said, and Lan Wangji flinched. “You are willful like him. And you’re quick to make decisions, driven by emotion. You have no care for your own preservation. You throw yourself into danger.”
Lan Wangji hadn’t realized his uncle had reached over until Lan Qiren closed his hand over his knuckles. He looked up at him, unable to hide the impact those words had on him, gaze wavering.
“But you are not like him in the ways that matter. You’ve a caring heart, a self-sacrificing one.” Lan Qiren sent him another of those small smiles. “Ah, you foolish boy. Do you not think I raised you to be a perfect nephew? Are you not one half of the Lan sect’s splendid Twin Jades?”
Lan Wangji looked down at his cup. “And what of the other half of the Lan sect’s Twin Jades?”
Lan Qiren hummed. “A man too trusting, betrayed.” He drew his hand back. “He will heal with time, as you have. I did not raise you so you could repeat my brother’s mistakes. Or mine, for that matter.”
Lan Wangji watched him pour out another cup of tea for the both of them.
“I doubted you when you brought Lan Sizhui back, and again when you brought your husband back here. Those were my mistakes. Never will I doubt you again.”
“Uncle—”
Lan Qiren lifted a finger. “Drink, before the tea cools.”
Lan Wangji blinked rapidly and barely managed to keep his chest from bursting. Before he lifted his cup to his lips, he said, “Yes, Uncle.”